Korean and Vietnamese adoptees on the intimate racialized politics of transracial adoption

Episode Transcript
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Dr. Indigo Willing (00:07):
You know, adoption isn't just from a
childhood or, you know, twentyyears ago or ten years ago when
the book came out or whenever,it's like we have to understand
it across our life course.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine (00:18):
I think every human being has
something. If they are they canfind, support from just one fan,
one person that is very specialto them, they can keep both.

Jane Jeong Trenka (00:32):
I didn't know all this stuff happened. And
then we put the call out, and Ithink none of us had any idea.

My name is Indigo Willing. I have a PhD in
sociology. My pronouns aresheher. I live in Australia on
the land of the Turrbal andJagera peoples, on unceded land,
recognizing that theirsovereignty was never ceded. And
I'm a Vietnamese adoptee and oneof the chapter authors in
outsiders within.

My name is, Timo Hakior Natalie Le
Moi, also known as, Cho Mi He orNatalie Le Moi. I'm a Korean
adoptee from the first wave inBelgium. And, I am I was a
returnee from 1993 to 02/2006,to Korea, and now I live in

(01:21):
Montreal.

Hello. My name is Jane Tranca. I'm a
Korean adoptee. I live in Seoul.I was adopted to Minnesota in
1972.
In Korea, right now, I'm aninsurance agent. It's great fun.
Okay. How many people in thechat room? And that's Julia.
She's my daughter that I'mraising here. I just wanna say

(01:44):
thank you, Kamira, for layingthe so much groundwork in Korea
for adoptees to be here. So Iremember you were telling me the
earliest some of the earliest,adoptees who returned to Korea
when you were here in 'ninetythree experienced so much
hardship because you had to goback and forth because there

(02:05):
wasn't a proper visa for us. AndI remember you telling me that
at that time you you guys had nomoney and you were using paper
plates and eating huangopang,eating like fried street food,
like this bread with, beansinside of it. Can can you tell
tell us more about, like, kindalike the early days?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: The early days were, like, as a (02:27):
undefined
as a European Korean adoptee,which is very different from, I
think, American or AustralianKorean adoptees, because most of
us who've been adopted in Europewere in a non English speaking,
country except England, but notmany English Korean adoptses

(02:50):
were coming back at the time.And also the the British accent
was not well received in Koreabecause, I think Korea is
colonized by, by America. For meas a Francophone, at the team
not knowing English at the time,not being good in language

(03:10):
anyway, having to learn Koreanagain. I met the first Korean
adoptee from Sweden when I wastaking class at the IYIWA
University or Sogang University,which where adoptees would need
to learn the language to be ableto function in the Korean
society. So that's how we firstmet.

(03:30):
In the beginning, I met moreEuropean adoptees. So we were
all kind of speaking English,but for me, as a non English
speaker and not being good inlanguage only, I went by and in
the same time I was learningKorean. I had to learn English
to learn Korean also, so it wastwo language in the same time.

(03:51):
People who were returning at atime knew that we could have
only three months as a normaltourist visa. So, we had to plan
studying.
I mean, we were not all adoptedin rich families. And even if we
were, we were not especiallysupported by our adoptive
parents. Not many Korean peopleknew that we want to return to

(04:15):
our birth country. What the heckdo you wanna come back to Korea?
It's a poor country.
Are you so lucky to be adoptedby white people in the western
society? So they didn'tunderstand why we want to return
and connect with our birth land.As I think it was a different
between female and male and thekids coming back to Korea,

(04:39):
knowing that Korea is not veryfeminist country. So it's like
also being a woman in Koreawhere kind of, we were losing
our, freedom from the Westversus Korean adult male were,
like, embracing Korea becausefor the first time they were
sexualized. They were likeupgrade in the society because

(05:03):
they were the king of thesociety.
So so I think the experience ofbeing a different also like not
the majority after I think inthe mid nineties, like '96, '90
'7, Many more adoptees firstfrom Minnesota came because,
Crystal Chapel were, like,advertising that it was an

(05:24):
association in Korea, which wasmy first association in Korea. I
was the connection. So I wouldstart to meet more Korean
American who were coming inKorea to teach English, often to
pay their school debt oruniversity debt, which European
don't have debt. So it was avery different motivation to

(05:46):
come, in Korea. I didn't knowthe different the cultural
difference, so I learned a lotabout America because of Korean
adoptees from America.
And it was for me, veryinteresting to see the tendency
from one culture, how muchadoptees from Korea absorb so
well their adaptive culture, ofcourse, and the differences and

(06:06):
mentalities. And so it start tobe some little fight between
adoptees from France versusBelgium, Francophone,
Anglophone, and it's like alittle micro work with all the
from coming back to Korea. Sothe platform and the, reuniting
land was sold of, often. And sothat's where we we had our first

(06:32):
meeting, our first fight, ourfirst acknowledgment that we
need more right, not only forsport but also to stay in Korea.

Thank you, Kimura. That's really so
fascinating and, it's likelittle little micro microcosm.
This fascinating place to be Ithink. So you did so much work
in community and Indigo I thinkyou've also done a lot of work
in community as well. Would youlike to add to that?

So the Vietnamese adoptee community
really began to come together asa collective, across oceans
around 2,000 because it was the,anniversary, the twenty fifth
anniversary of the Vietnam War,and people were holding quite a
lot of reunions. And thisincluded adoption agencies who,

(07:25):
have not always been verysupportive of adoptees, and we
can talk about maybe therelationship to adoption
agencies later. But becausethere were these reunions
happening to celebrate orcommemorate, depending on how
you look at it, the end of theVietnam War and these waves of
Vietnamese children being movedfrom Vietnam to various Western

(07:46):
countries, it was very easy insome ways to find each other on
the Internet. Prior to that, itwas sort of like we were doing
our own thing, and a lot ofpeople were isolated, and there
are a lot of struggles withidentity or, you know, how to
find relatives and so on. ButBut just having the Internet
grow the way that it had andhaving these reunions that were
happening, we found each otheracross oceans.

(08:09):
So whether you're in France oryou were in The United States,
Canada, Eritreux, New Zealand,or Australia, it was quite a
movement to connect and a reallyrevelatory moment, like, a real
revelation that was so muchcathartic for many of us because
of the nature of how we'd beenraised, isolated from other

(08:30):
Vietnamese people and otherVietnamese adoptees often. There
was this really deep, deep needto just see be seen be seen and
feel normalized, you know, sortof not being the different one
in your family, in society, andwithin Vietnamese communities
even. So around February waswhen we started, I guess,

(08:52):
connecting. And then over theyears, it's been, an interesting
journey, maybe following a lotin the footsteps of the things
that Korean adoptees have setup, and we're very grateful for
the pathways that the Koreanadoptee organizers, activists,
writers, and so on have beenpaving to give us examples of
how to adapt that to our owncommunities. We'll never be like

(09:14):
Korean adoptees identically.
We've got similar militaryhistories, similar, you know,
sort of diasporas andexperiences of racism, but of
course, we've also got ourunique our uniqueness about our
communities. So it's been such alovely way connecting say with
outsiders within with the bookto not just Korean adoptees but
other transracial andtransnational adoptees to try

(09:34):
and find out what's possible todo with our voices. You know,
we've got a lot to say. We'vegot a lot of stories to tell.
We've got a lot of brainpowernow.
You know? We're no longer just,you know, being invited to talk
about our lived experiences. Wehave people that are in research
and authors and filmmakers, butreally just knowing what the
potential is for our communityto give voice and, again, you

(09:55):
know, make make space and shareresources with other adoptee
communities.

So I realized when we're recording this, we're
talking about the years, like,from the nineties until the
early two thousands, whichdoesn't to me seem very long
ago. It doesn't seem that longago, but I'm teaching some
university students right now inKorea and I realize so they kind
of complained to me about theirother classes and how the

(10:21):
professors have chosen textsfrom like the 1990s. Like they
they like they can't believethey have to read anything so
old or they have to viewanything so old. So like I kind
of had a shock. I mean youyou're teaching, right Indigo?
Yeah. So the students of this, Imean like it's really ancient
history like what we're talkingabout like to them. This is

(10:41):
ancient.

Yeah. My my students were born after
February mostly they make jokesabout 2010 like that's so 2010
because they were

10. So I feel like maybe this kind of kind of
underscores the importance ofarchiving and doing this
because, you know, maybe maybewe've lost our coolness now, but
a hundred years from now, maybesomebody will think it's cool.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. I think, maybe, your (11:04):
undefined
children will think about, yourhistory and how you came to,
Atlanta. And I think it's adense, next generation who wanna
take care of our memory andbring along the in the future.

Yeah. Perhaps. Also, do you know you
know Alice and Sunggyap from TheNetherlands? Did you meet them,
Kimura? No.
So they lived in Korea. Theywere both adopted to The
Netherlands and they lived inKorea for some years and they
had three children already whenthey came to Korea. And so the
children all spent some time inKorea and then they went back.

(11:49):
And I knew them when they werelittle kids. And recently their
eldest son came back to Koreabecause, he did an exchange
program at Korea University andthen after that he's he was
studying at a Dutch university.
But COVID, so he was taking allhis classes online anyway, so he

(12:10):
just decided to stay in Koreaand enjoy the food and take his
classes Korean language. So hewent to school here, took public
school in Korea for a while, andthen he went back to The

(12:30):
Netherlands and he he continuedwatching Korean media and so
forth, and he kept up hislanguage. And then he comes to
Korea and he can completely goto Korean University in Korean
language. It's so amazing.

I think also like I would I mean,
your children because I don'thave. But, your children don't
have the trauma that you had.Maybe you pass on in some ways,
but also they don't have thistrauma that we had and how, we
cannot be just, neutral on thehistory. It's like something
that is I think whether we wantto, admit or not is kind of

(13:07):
emotional. And, I think what ismaybe more specific to Korea,
which I think is a bit differentwith Vietnamese, if I wanted to
discuss with a differentbackground, it's like many,
adoptees from Korea were, how doyou say, panier?
Adepts from panier, fullyadopted, like, with the secret

(13:28):
and lies. But Vietnamese, maybehad more open adoption. You had
some information sometime fromyour background. Some had, some
not. The adoptees from Vietnamhad more information than Korean
adoptees.

Yeah. I mean, Viet Vietnam is a very
different socially andculturally, very different place
to some of the other placeswhere they have adoption. It was
at a time where there wasn'tmuch infrastructure. The
majority of, adoptions that Ican speak about being in the
Vietnam War adoptions. A lot ofthe documents are questionable
because of the rush of trying toevacuate people, not just

(14:05):
adoptees, but trying toevacuate, South Vietnamese
citizens from the South duringwhat was essentially a, like, a,
you know, a civil conflict aswell as an international one.
There are bits and pieces ofinformation that some people
had, and then they're findingout sometimes that that
information might have beenmanufactured by the, people
that, oversaw their evacuationsand their adoptions. There's

(14:28):
only been one case where anadoptee Vietnamese adoptee
successfully been reunited withtheir parents who found them and
said that their adoption wasillegal from the war generation.
But after that, yeah, theinformation is beginning to be a
an obligation through The Hague.Vietnam is signed to The Hague,
and, at the same time, we knowthat the laws around that can be

(14:51):
very, very tricky. So forinstance, having assigned signed
consent from the parents, and wedon't know what sort of coercion
might exist behind that.
Once the parents decide to givethe child, over to adoption
processes, they have thirty daysto change their mind, but we
also know in in, a Westerncontext that, you know, one

(15:11):
month to get over post maternal,you know, sort of issues and
depression may be very, verymuch longer than that. So
There's all sorts of questionswe need to ask. And if a child
goes for adoption, the policeare obligated to search for the
parents for a certain amount oftime. But if they can't be
found, then it's up to theadoption the orphanage, people
that are running the orphanageto decide that. And again, you

(15:32):
know, it's it's I think itstarts at $30,000 to adopt a
child through The US, which isa, you know, an enormous amount
of money, in comparison toVietnamese, you know, the
Vietnamese economy.
So there's all sorts ofquestions that we we cover in
the book, of course, but, youknow, adoption's open to a lot
of complications, includingtrafficking and including just,

(15:54):
mistakes being made overchildren's identities during the
war as well. I think that'ssomething that we all connect
within that outsiders withinbook though is that that search
for identity, which is now, youknow, it's a legal expectation.
So it really is a search forjustice, migration, identity,
all these sorts of things. And Ithink with, at least with

(16:15):
Vietnamese adoptees now,something that's been very
interesting is this, connectionto Vietnamese adoptees to the
Vietnamese diaspora of refugeeshas been becoming stronger and
stronger over the years,particularly in terms of
citizenship and Vietnameseadoptees and Vietnamese citizens
Americans being deported inreally ways that would just make

(16:35):
your jaw drop, and connectingwith people that are doing
adoptee citizenship rights. Andalso over the the spay or the
the wave of, racism towardsAsians in Western countries.
It's in Australia, but it's it'svery intensified over in America
right now. And that, yeah, theVietnamese diaspora and the
Vietnamese adoptees arerealizing that, you know, they

(16:56):
they share a lot of challengesthat by connecting with each
other, it's, both strengtheningand healing at the same time.
Yeah. Increasingly, I thinkVietnamese adoptions are shaped
by a war experience because it'sit's almost fifty years ago now,
but that was the main event ofadoptions there. And the the

(17:16):
younger generation, there's somereally important conversations
that we're yet to have and hearmore about about what their
experience is as youngeradoptees leaving, not in
wartime, but leaving when it'speace time in Vietnam.
But the war lingers verystrongly for Vietnamese in the
West that it sort of shapes allrelationships with them as an

(17:36):
adoptee or whoever you are. Ifyou wanna connect with
Vietnamese community overseas,it will still be shaped heavily
by their feelings towards thewar, if that makes sense. So
really interesting dynamics andcommunity shifts over the years
since we did that book as well

even. Indigo, did you see that the Al Jazeera
film? You can probably describeit better than I can, but she
did she has that moment with theguy who the American guy who was
in Saigon at the time Saigonfell, And he talks about how the
the babies from OperationBabylift were used, as he says,
a fig leaf to get out the, theVietnamese people that The

(18:17):
United States wanted to get out.You you saw that. Can can you
talk about that?

No. I can't actually. I haven't I haven't
seen that film. I know thatKathleen Turner, a Vietnamese
adoptee, made that, and she's ina there are a lot of Vietnamese
adoptees now that are culturalproducers of our knowledge in
films, in books, and so on. Butthere's very interesting
politics around the Vietnameseadoptions.
For instance, at the time inAustralia where I'm from, the

(18:44):
leader of the country, the primeminister who's similar to a
president, was very antirefugees. He was very racist and
he actually is quoted innewspaper saying, I don't want
these slanty eyed bastardscoming to our shores. But having
the photo opportunity to bephotographed with incoming baby
lift children, the cute, sittingon his lap. He agreed to that.

(19:04):
So it's a very sort of,interesting way to look at the
selective relationship that awhite colonized nation has with
adoptees, you know, they theyare very easily used in
particular agendas in ways that,you know, adults aren't.
So it always raises some reallyinteresting questions about why
it was approved, these massiveevacuations of children. And we

(19:27):
know in The UK, for instance,the Daily Mail, actually a
newspaper arranged to have theywanted a hundred children for a
newspaper story and they tooksome children that were not
orphans in that airlift. So ifwe look from country to country
with Vietnamese adoptees, andtheir removal from Vietnam, in
some cases, it's genuineevacuation and they are all part

(19:48):
of the refugee generation,whether forced migration or or
or voluntary, they're stillrefugees, but, the situations of
how they're removed andsometimes is very manipulated
for media or for politics, whichis, again, just raises
interesting questions on what wecan learn from that. For
instance, if we look atcountries like Haiti and, you
know, events like that, again,where you have, you know, a lot

(20:11):
of media attention towards theso called rescue of these
children and then really,enormous questions we have to
ask about the ethics of that. Ilook forward to seeing more
documentaries made by Vietnameseadoptees about our history.

You're such a good scholar that way. You're
like, oh, that raisesinteresting questions. Whereas,
like, I'm just, like, ready tostart day drinking right now
when you talk about like, it's,like, makes me so angry.

Is it is it similar to I mean, my one of my
greatest awaken awakeningmoments, it was a really good
moment anyway, was watchingfirst person plural with a
Vietnamese family who hadadopted a Vietnamese child. And,
they said, you know, really, youshould see this. And at the
time, I was like, why would Iwanna read something about

(20:55):
Korean adoptees and Vietnamese?And we're not all the same, you
know, because you gotta letracism, you know, like Asia is a
big place with differentnations. But then upon being
exposed to that kind ofdocumentary making about the
adoption experience regardlessof where from Asia or wherever
you're from, it was it was veryinfluential and just made a huge

(21:17):
impact on me and then seeingfilms like Temi choose
resilience again, sort ofunderstanding that, it's not
just an intellectual orpolitical phenomenon that we're
thinking about, it's deeplyemotional.
It's deeply felt at the microlevel, you know, it's felt
through our bodies, it's feltthrough our health, like the
number of, you know, medicalconditions and all sorts of

(21:38):
traumas that we could link,psychological conditions that,
you know, we're carrying theburden from that sort of
experience is, beautifullyexplored in documentaries. It's
stunningly explored that itreally reaches us and thinks,
okay. It's, at a politicallevel, and you can fix the laws
maybe. You can put on thesesafeguards, but then there's
also there's the livedexperience of being an adoptee

(22:00):
as well. And, the the need tocreate spaces for healing and
for voice is critical.
When you watch these sort offilms, you think, my gosh, you
know, like, event you know,adoption is not a singular
event. It's goes across yourlife course. And so watching
those films and the sequels thatpeople make to those films is
amazing. And that's, I think,what outsiders within does. It

(22:23):
opens up that conversation tosay, you know, adoption isn't
just from a childhood or, youknow, twenty years ago or ten
years ago when the book came outor whenever.
It's like we have to understandit across our life course, and
it's very, very important tolook at those, contributions
from the book and think my gosh,you know, like at that time now
this is how people wereexperiencing it and we have the

(22:45):
beauty now of also catching upand thinking okay this is what,
has manifested since then bothpositive and negative for those
people and those communities aswell.

Thank you for saying that, Bill. I I feel
very, validated in havingemotions about it. Thank you.
Kamira, you have done so muchwork and so much of it has been
about exploring identity. Yeah.
So I felt I felt like that was agood segue to talk about all of
your artistic output.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: But but for me, it was (23:13):
undefined
interesting because, I think Ihad two, two images to, artwork.
And, I thought, and becausemaybe I'm a Francophone or
something that my poetry was nottaken in the book, but because
my my poetry, in Frenchtranslated into English, it's

(23:34):
maybe not the same. I don'tknow. But, anyways, for me, it
was interesting. And, I made myfirst film, thirty two years ago
now when I was 20, and it wasabout adoption.
And I I don't know why, but Ikeep continuing doing art in
relation to adoption,interracial adoption, feminism,

(23:56):
force displacement, diaspora,identities with the s. Like, but
I think I unlayered my ownidentity, and it helped me to go
through my body of work. I willnot say especially art because
for me, it's more I I reallyenjoy making my my work even

(24:16):
maybe people don't care a shit,but it's okay for me. It's like
as long as I can do it and I'mvery privileged, and I know that
that, I I I chose this voiceover not being in academic
because I think my neurodifferences can, not make me
study properly. But I I found mymy own path, and I think, I'm

(24:38):
happy with that.
And in different ways, I canshare what I think about
adoption, what I think aboutrace, what I think about
colorism, what I think aboutgender. Some, art critic will
say, oh, but you talk about you.I say, yeah. Talk about me and
200,000 people also, at least.Not counting at these, adoptive

(25:00):
parents, adverse families whoare connected with that.
So it's about a million people.And I think that kind of public
is already big for me. It'senough for me, I think. And I I
of course, I don't, reacheveryone on everything, but I
think some people who see somepart of my work can relate to
that because it's not just aboutadoption. And it's just about,

(25:22):
human experience.
And, I think everybody gettrauma in different level,
different ways. The loss of aland, of a language, of food, or
something. It's like everybodycan relate it in some ways. And
I grew up in the eighties. Soeighties is like video clip, you

(25:43):
know, MTV.
And, everything has to be sofast, and it was no Internet. So
it was a different way tocommunicate. And I think my
artwork is all about that. It'sto communicate within one
minute. You need to understandthe concept when it's video.
There is a say in French. Thisthey say, means the the shortest

(26:04):
joke at the best. So for me,it's it's not especially a joke,
but sometimes, I use a Belgianhumor, which is very specific to
Belgian and not French, notother. And it's a kind of a
sarcastic humor that I use in mywork. And, of course, maybe some
translation cannot translate it,with the cultural references.

(26:28):
Also, the fact that my adoptivemodel was Flemish and with
Francophone, living in Belgium,being from a a divided country,
South Korea and North Korea,then Belgium divided by
language, Flemish, Francophone,and then, moving to, Canada with
Anglophone Francophone. I thinkI'm just, so, glued to that to

(26:53):
that kind of trauma ofseparation of differences. And I
guess now I'm 50, and so morethan half a century, and I'm
still there. So I I guess it'ssomething there. And, I wonder
what is just to make art withoutthe label of being POC, being
LGBT, being adulte, beingoverseas adulte, being diaspora.

(27:16):
What what is left anyways? Like,I think the time would would
sell, I guess. For me, it'sjust, it's just a way to
survive, I think, within art.It's like and, of course, we can
decide to commit suicide or notlive. There is no reason to
live, but I think every humanbeing has something.
If they are they can find,support from just one friend,

(27:41):
one person that is very specialto them, they can keep the
light, they can keep hope, and Ithink it's very important. And I
think that would can talk to somany people also and the fact
that it's different voices andnot just Korean adoptees, I
think that's very important andpeople can relate the same kind
of trauma to that book or likequestion or, like, experience.

(28:04):
So I think anthologies are veryimportant for the memory of the
community or communities.

And I I just wanna sort of, like, fawn a
little bit over Camira because II appreciate you so much. And
just, like, the things that youhave mentioned about, like, the
joy that you have in yourartwork, I feel like you've just
seen everything. Like, in Korea,you just saw everything. And
you've gone through so muchtrauma in your life. I remember

(28:33):
that you ran away from home whenyou were 14?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 13. 13. (28:37):
undefined

And you had the experience of being more
diverse in school and havingpeople look down on you, right,
for not studying well?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. But at the time, you don't (28:47):
undefined
know if it's because you arejust stupid or it's because
you're Asian or because you'retoo tall or because of this or,
you know, the result or becauseI had a Flemish accent or
because I was not using theproper French word. You know,
you never know why.

Right. Right. So and yet, despite all of these
things, you have brought so muchjoy into your work. I just love
the way that you're you know,you mentioned that you wanna
take the shortest route, youknow, to show people. And your
work is so powerful, which iswhy we want to include it in the
book.
And also just such generosityliving in Korea, like I remember

(29:25):
you, you would just host people,like if people needed a place to
be, you would just let them be.

So many times that we had to pick
up adulties so drunk in thestreet.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think I remember
like one of the first times thatI I met you, you just brought me
some socks. Like, you just gaveme socks, which is so nice. And
I I just feel like throughthrough all of this hardship,
your spirit just shines through,and you just keep giving to
people on a personal level andalso with your artwork that we

(29:56):
can see and we can relate to andwe can understand the situation
instantly.
And I saw also your your writingis great. I really appreciate
your writing. I saw last yearfor, adoption day. There was
another conference in Korea, andyou contributed to that. And I
just appreciate so much how wejust get to the point.
You guys had asked about, like,how how this book came together.

(30:18):
So I wrote Language of Blood, Iguess I was let's see, it was
published in 02/2003. And atthat time, my publisher sent me
on a book tour. And so,everywhere I would go, I would
see these faces in the audienceof these book readings, and some
of them were Korean, I was like,okay, I understand why you're
here. And then I see some whitepeople, it's like, okay, I get
why you're here.

(30:39):
And then there would be all ofthese other people, and I didn't
really I would be confused. Andthen after after the reading,
like, people, you know, like,you open up like a little corner
of your heart, and then otherpeople feel like, oh, it's okay
to open up this corner of myheart too, and so they would
start talking and these bookreadings, I swear, so this is
almost twenty years ago. And itwas a new thing to talk, like

(31:02):
twenty years ago, and I feellike I'm talking to my students,
hey, So Gong students, it wastwenty years ago.

It was

at the time. They They would open up a corner
of their heart, and thesebookings would go on for hours.
I think, like, the longest one,it was like four hours because
people would, like, testify, andthey would do this in the
greetings, and they would do itat the table when I was signing
books. And I find out that therewere all of these other people
who are transracially adoptedeither internationally or

(31:28):
domestically, and despite how welooked, we were all raised by
white people. And I thought,well, isn't this interesting?
Why don't we get somethingtogether? So I you know, the
first thing that you would doback in the day is search on
Yahoo to find out, like, whoelse might be doing a similar
project. And so at that time,Julia Chinyere Opara had a

(31:51):
similar call for submissionsout. And I was like, oh, well,
she's already doing this. Ibetter contact her and see
what's up because it looked likethe project hadn't reached
completion yet.
And so she I contacted her andshe said, yeah. I wanna do this
project, except for most of thepeople who are giving me
submissions are Korean, and Ican't edit them because she was
raised in The UK. And her herfather was from Nigeria, and her

(32:16):
mother was from The UK. So she'slike, I have all these Korean
submissions. I don't know whatto do with it.
So that's that's how thathappened. And then Sunyoung Shin
was a friend of mine fromMinneapolis. And so we kind of I
mean, like, I'm I'm not as wellor well, but Sun Young leans
towards that. She's a poet. And,Julia Chenery Oberai,

(32:38):
definitely, she's a respectedscholar.
So, yeah, that's how it all cametogether. And what what we
really appreciated about theartwork so, Kimira, yours is
right before, Jeyron Kim'spiece, was that we felt like you
could just look at the artworkthat precedes the scholarly

(32:58):
paper and kind of instantly geta feeling for what the paper was
gonna be about, you know,because not all of us have long
attention spans. So so it'slike, okay, let's, you know,
like, get to the emotion first,and then and then we understand
why this scholarly piece needsto be here so we can understand
it in two different ways. So,you guys, I have to run out
quick, and I'll be back in aboutfive minutes.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Okay. Let's see. (33:26):
undefined

I I have presents from you when we met in
Washington.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Was it, in Modisia? (33:32):
undefined

Yeah. Yep. Where the, the Vietnam War war
war is actually for theveterans. I was so stoked to see
that. I'd seen documentaries onit because it was, it's for the
Vietnam Veterans, and it haseverybody's name that lost their
lives, that were Americansoldiers during the war.
And the architect it was open toa competition. The architect who

(33:54):
won it was an Asian American,and the amount of racism that
came out from that was, veryshocking and very sad. And, so
it's the the fact that the pieceitself stands there is such an
interesting, symbolism of thetensions that exist between
white America and every, youknow, the and migrant America,

(34:15):
First nations I'm really, youknow, interested as well and,
like, you know, theirrelationship to settlers, like
Vietnamese refugees and adopteesas well, and what sort of
connections, and conversationsare happening in The United
States. And certainly with thethe Veteran Memorial, I was just
so excited to go and see it inperson, and it was such an

(34:37):
emotional time for me becauseyou know, there are there are
veterans that visit there, thereare the families of people,
they've lost people. Everyone'svery solemn and emotional, but
it's also a very, there's notmany Vietnamese people there, so
you kinda feel like, am Iallowed to be in this space, or
am I upsetting and traumatizingpeople by my presence?

(34:57):
Are they hostile towards me? Dothey even notice that I'm here?
So such an intense, experience,and I've heard from a lot of
other Vietnamese adoptees aswell when they go there that
they they have so many emotionsbecause on the one hand, a lot
of them are Amerasians. So, youknow, their fathers were
American soldiers, and they feela connection to this wall very,

(35:18):
very personally and for othersbecause, you know, some are
legitimately, lost family duringthe war and they have this
tension between, you know,forgiveness, I guess.
Forgiveness and compassion andthe anguish of losing family
through, the American, you know,conflict.
You know, there's there's somany stories that we could tell

(35:40):
from so many angles about theVietnam War, and it's important
to understand all of them tounderstand what it is to be a
Vietnamese person overseas andalso an adoptee. But yeah, I
remember seeing this wall andjust being so moved and just
feeling really quite, you know,when you you know when you see
something and you almost gosilent like you can't speak for
the rest of the day because it'sjust sort of knocks the air out

(36:02):
of you and then just having areally cool time with the
adoptees and everybody in thehotel afterwards like whoo, you
know like it's a safe spaceagain. It's like, Oh my gosh.
I'm with my people So that was aI'm sure it's the same for
everybody when you go to seememorials. I don't know.
Are they, like, Korean warmemorials and stuff in the

(36:22):
places where you've lived? Is ita thing? People really love, the
American war had so many moviesas well, like the Vietnam war.
It's very hard to get away fromit in a sense. They're still
making them now.
You know? Every year, there'ssome big documentary, like the
Kevin Burns one and, Spike Leehad one.

I think, Belkan veteran from the
Korean war, and they becameextra in my film.

Oh. And

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: then, my actress and I, we was (36:48):
undefined
in the Kill Our Mother movie.

Yeah.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: You know? And they were smiling (36:53):
undefined
and all they said, we know yourpeople and so on. We were like
we were mixed feeling because,they were so nice to us because
they recognize every face, andmaybe that's, kind of nostalgic
for them. But in the same time,we we I mean, for me, I was
adopted as a mixed race personeven I'm not white Asian, but

(37:14):
I'm Japanese Korean. But it'slike it was really a weird
feeling to but I filmed them,and they became part of my film
anyways.
So but, there there is a once ayear, commemoration of, the
Korean War, but I don't know ifin DC they have also a Korean

(37:34):
War. But also we we are, kind ofpart from the Korean War also,
like, you know, 5053. After six,seventy years, we still, I mean,
more now. Yeah. Seventy years.

Yeah. I'm really I'm I'm just looking at
the list of authors that we havefrom that book. There's so many
friends and amazing amazinglyimpressive people like, Kim Pac
Nelson, Sandra White Hawk, BrianTarwara. Like, you know, a lot
of friends too. Like, Briansends me cute animal videos and
pictures once a week.
You know? Like Wow. Like, youknow, he's, La thing for cute

(38:16):
animals or something. But it'salso laughing or we'll cry
because we're, you know, we'reall sort of, like, joined by,
you know, heavy heavycircumstances. Shannon Gibney,
Jiran Kim, of course, and AlColby.
Laura Briggs is a reallyinteresting scholar. She's not
an adoptee, but definitely anamazingly, subversive pivotal
voice in adoption studies. TracyMoffat's an indigenous first

(38:37):
nation.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Oh, yeah. Of course. I love her. (38:38):
undefined

Oh, yeah. But, yeah, there's, John Raybel,
Suna, Sunny Jo. Sunny Jo.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Andu Okolg, also? (38:46):
undefined

Yeah. Amazing. Always really striking
work. They're they're really,interesting artists. They take a
lot of photographs of,community, the, people of color
in The United States just livingtheir lives as well.
So I think for all of us, we doit we do write about and do
artwork about adoption, butwe're we do more than that.
Yeah. It's really nice toreflect on both our adoption

(39:10):
work and work beyond that.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Now I'm, I'm part of the Korean (39:13):
undefined
adoptee group for AdopteesRideand trying to, have a
conversation with domesticKorean adoptees. But I'm, I
think I'm more of an observerthan really, being, active
because I'm, like, dislocated.I'm I'm in I'm in Montreal alone
here. But I like to listen toconversation they have so I keep

(39:38):
informed about the situationsand the changes. But I think for
me, I mean, I did my my activistwork with the visa and, the
right to search for birth motherfor women to get the family
register of their own.
So it was three thing that wereally work hard at the time

(39:59):
when I was there. But then I Ithink, I mean, I had to pass on
the new generation with newlike, I think the next
generation, worked on thisdouble citizenship, Korean
adoptees, and also, birth motherrights. Because Korea didn't
sign the The Hague, convention,or they didn't, respect the the

(40:24):
the rules of internationaladoption. But I think Vietnam
signed before.

Only recently.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. And I think the the fact (40:31):
undefined
that they didn't wanna sign isbecause they wanna do
trafficking.

It may yeah. It's sort of, they did sign it
actually, but it's effectivefrom December 2020.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Oh, wow. Only. Oh my god. (40:44):
undefined

There's been a lot of times that adoption's
been halted in Vietnam becauseof trafficking accusations, and,
various countries will engageand not engage.

Is there also movement in Australia
about that? Because in France,they have an organization, a
group of adoptees, accusing,illegal addiction. And more and
more case are in in TheNetherlands also.

Yeah. I think there's a lot of energy
increasingly towards umbrellaorganizations like Adoptee
Rights, Adoptee Citizen Rightsin The US to support sort of
more of a blanket approach to,looking at, say, issues of
deportation. Yeah. I thinkthere's literally only been one
successful case of Vietnameseparents legally challenging

(41:34):
adoption and getting their childback. So that was in a a
different book chapter that I Ico wrote with, Patricia Frohnick
and Denise Cuthbert, in 2015.
So things might have changedsince then, but it's it's very
complicated. And adoptions fromVietnam halted they stopped
completely from Australia after1975.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Oh, okay. So (41:57):
undefined

you have to live in Vietnam for two years
before you can adopt a childfrom Vietnam, and very few
people are gonna do that. Soit's it's very, very rare. And,
to burst, he almost he wroteabout this saying that there's a
generations of adoptees thatare, like, going to that they're
the experience once they die.Their culture and legacies, you

(42:20):
know going with them so, inAustralia Vietnamese adoptees as
a population AustralianVietnamese adoptees. Yeah, you
know we we're it.
We don't have elders and wedon't have a next generation in
a in this country to, pass outhistory to, but we do overseas.
So in America and France and,you know, the Nordic countries,

(42:41):
yes, you know, there are newgenerations of Vietnamese
adoptees. So there there's notmuch political movement because
of that, and the numbers arequite small for mobilization.
It's, it's not gonna be as, youknow, easy to gather numbers to
make it a significant protest orcivil action or whatever they
decide, but, you know, thingscome around in circles and

(43:04):
different cases inspire otherpeople to do things. And
definitely with, the use ofagent orange in Vietnam and the
health effects of that, youknow, we're very carefully
watching what the Vietnamesecommunity doing about that
because it affects our communitytoo.
You know, the the chemicals thatthey use during the Vietnam War
can't discern between adopteesand people that aren't adopted.

(43:24):
So always just trying to lookbroadly in our community. But
such a good question.

Yeah. I didn't I didn't know all this
stuff happened. Like all I sawwas the faces and met the people
who came to those book readings,and then we put the call out,
and I think none of us had anyidea that all of this was
happening, and, it was it waslike the most depressing year of
my life editing this book. I hada I had a folding table out in

(43:59):
my house, and it was just piledfull of all these submissions,
and it was just like a tablefull of trauma. It was so hard.
And there were some pieces that,I read that it was just I mean,
like, I knew about Tobiasalready, but then he submitted
that piece, and it was just likeall of history piling in piling
on top of you at the same time,because like he talks about like

(44:21):
the whole history of, like,first child migration. Actually,
it was in his thesis, he talkedabout Korea's sort of habit of
giving human gifts to greatercountries, which was just
devastating. He was just like,you know that little piece, and
it's just devastating to findout about and, you know, then I
was searching around and I foundthe the pictures of the Indian

(44:42):
boarding schools. And and youcould we could just like see how
everything was all related andthe humans keep doing this to
children, and I was just like sofilled with a grief and anger.
But like we have to know thesethings, otherwise we keep we
keep repeating it.
But that's, I guess, you know,like for people who are working

(45:03):
with the community, there'sstill so much work that needs to
be done. Still so much. And it'sreally important, and the
emotional toll is high, right,of doing that work.

Yeah. I mean, it's, something that
somebody said to me in variousway was that, we can all make a
difference and change willhappen, but it doesn't have it
won't all happen at once. It'slike the hair ad or something
like, you know, but, like, thatrush to have everything done and
be productive all the time,again, is a structural thing.
You You know, we come fromdifferent cultures, but I think

(45:37):
there's this emphasis thatyou've always gotta be at it
twenty four seven and on thegrind and doing things where in
fact rest is political, youknow, and particularly for
people of color and various,marginalized people, we have to
struggle for that time out torest because we have to work
twice as hard. We always have tobe 10 times better than, you
know, the mainstream societiesthat we're placed in.

(45:59):
So I think it's really importantto have these conversations
about needing time out, needingto pause, knowing that that's
actually strengthening yourcommitments to what you do in
the long run. And also that weowe nothing. We we shouldn't
feel obligated in the sense toperform the way that other
people can that have had lesstrauma. We have our own

(46:20):
cultures, we're adoptees, wehave particular traumas, and we
have sensitivities that wehopefully can safely have these
conversations with, but alsoapproach in our work. I remember
doing this book, I've literallyjust had a baby and I remember
declining saying I can't do itlike II don't have the capacity
and II don't sleep at night andit's such a you know and I was

(46:43):
doing a PHD and working on allthese things And, Sun Yoon Shin
really saying, like, you know,like, it's something that we can
work with and that your voice,you know, if you can do this,
you know, it'd be really great,but, you know, see what how you
feel.
And but somehow she convinced methat there was a space to do
this and we could do this. SoI'm really always very grateful

(47:04):
to even be in this book becauseof how much I was gonna I was
really gonna turn it down andsay, no, I just can't do it.
And, you know, it it it was onlythrough community and the power
of community that I was able todo it and, cope with what was
going through because I just hada child myself. And for an
adoptee, having a child bringsback so many deep questions

(47:26):
yourself. It was nice to notnice, but it's it's very healing
and very important to hear abouthow this book took you off your
feet, and it wasn't a niceexperience.
It wasn't a joyful experience.We're not writing about joy. We
can do that too in another bookmaybe, but, you know, you're
literally trying to make thatdoor open to have these really,
really complex, difficult,traumatic conversations and that

(47:50):
we are good atcompartmentalizing, but we're
not superhuman and we don't needto be. So thank you for opening
that conversation and letting usremember that what we're doing
is a lot of emotional labor, alot of trauma, and a lot of
other things as well as, beingfor community.

Wow, Indigo. It's so super validating to talk
with you. Can I pay you fortherapy?

Yep. I'm available. Not not in the same
time zone, but why not?

Yeah. I guess that's that's kind of the thing,
like, adoptees say about thisbook is that, like, they can see
themselves reflected in it.Although we're talking about
really horrible things, that initself is really validating.

What what I mean, maybe the process for
artists is different because forwriters, we we project onto a
screen normally, and we can editand delete and save, and we have
various processes to feeldistance from our work. Like, I
can close my laptop and walkaway for the day, or put away my
book, but, I'm not sure, with anartist how you can walk away.

(48:54):
What's the process of taking abreak, that self care zone or
time out zone? Like, how do youpause if you're, you know,
always creatively thinking aboutthings? Is there a turn off
point or is that too hard?

And how do you how do you arrest, Kimura?
How do you how do you take a arest from thinking about what
you're thinking when you are avisual artist?

I watch, a lot of thing, different
kind of thing. I don't likehorror movie. I like to watch
documentaries. But for me, it'slike I, as maybe as for her, I
take a lot of picture, and andand I take a lot of, element
that can, be used for my worklater. It's often during the

(49:37):
night that I have a vision, andthen I say, oh, I can put the
recording that I did in in themarket and, I heard that woman
talking about gender with herdaughter.
And then I have this, waterfallfrom Niagara, and I think it's
gonna be look good with that ifI put the, filter or whatever

(49:59):
and then dramatize with thebackground background sound of
my cat. And this is all puzzleimages and sound that I I put in
my thing. Because I think withthe anti Asian sentiment that we
we did for the last year and ahalf, for me as, androgyn

(50:20):
androgyn, Andre Jean is,looking, being queer. I I stay
home a lot, and I didn't have togo out because I'm an artist and
I got grants from CanadaCouncil. So I didn't have to
work.
I I, don't work normally. Imean, I don't I don't work. I
don't go to an office. I don'tteach. I have no, gallery

(50:45):
representing me, so I have noattachment.
I'm a pure Buddhist. I have nokids. I have no wife. I have no
husband. I have just a cat.
And the cat can go away. It'sokay. It's fine. We'd be adopted
by someone else or something.But, I mean, I don't have much
attachment and, so I really I'mreally free to just I have few

(51:08):
friends, but I can meet themthrough Facebook.
I don't need to meet them. Butin Canada, there is something
that kind of bug me. They liketo hug. People like to hug here
and and that's why theconfinement confinement was very
good because I say, I cannot bebecause of it. So it it was

(51:30):
really good.
But, the thing is that I couldstay home the whole time because
I I went few time outside, andthen I get attacked. I get spit
on. So it's like and, of course,it's not because I'm an adoptee.
It's because I'm Asian, andthere is really clear. And also
they are Francophone often,like, either mental health or,

(51:51):
like, the maybe lower level ofeducation.
I don't know. It's like a combo.But, so more you go east in
Montreal, more is poor in infrancophone. More you go west is
anglophone. So for me, I now tryto go more on the anglophone
part because the francophone aremaybe too, for me, edgy and

(52:15):
aggressive.
It's like all this kind ofsituation bring me to new kind
of reflection and idea to workon art. And I I made some
performances through Zoom aboutracism using all archive from
French, media from the sixtiesabout racism, toward Asians. So

(52:37):
I I I look a lot of informationto, nourish my purpose. During
the pandemic, I was very muchmore, involved with the
interracial adoptees inMontreal. There is a group
called, ICE.
So, network for, interracialadoptees in Montreal for

(53:01):
Francophone, and then there isanother one called LibriDay, and
they combine for once to makesome Zoom meetings with adoptees
talking about their issues. Andmany Asian adoptees realized
they were Asian because of thispandemic, and they couldn't deny
anymore. And then so many traumacame back to them. So I I gave

(53:23):
some speech about that andtalking that it was ingrained,
or it was, maybe manymicroaggression they had,
growing up, they couldn't reallyexpress it and now it's come
back to them and it becomeharder to deal with that as an
adult. And so it's those kind ofstuff I did during the pandemic

(53:44):
and I try to have a balancebetween art and community and
also queer community.
But then I have very littlesleep, but it's good because I'm
always, like, something is in myhead, but not negative.

I I just wanted to first say, like,
you're you're such you're soamazing because you have all
these different identities thatyou carry. And I was really
hoping that I mean, like, I knowthat you were just, like, sick
of Korea when you left.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: No. I was not sick of Korea. I (54:17):
undefined
was not safe in Korea becauseI've been attacked because I was
lesbian officially, but I thinkI'm more queer than really
lesbian because for me, I thinkat the end, the body doesn't
really matter, but it's morelike sexual sexual or something
we call that. But, and but Ithink because I look like too

(54:39):
much like a man in Korea and itwas a very, you know, Korean can
drink so much and they don'tcare. They don't take
responsibility.
So that's why after this, thethird time I have been attacked
in in Korea, I think I gotenough. And I lost the job
because of, the new hours wherebecause I wrote my book in

(55:00):
February, you know, 45% Korean.They called 55% Korean. I said,
I'm not 55% Korean. I'm 45maybe, but no more.
And then it changed in the lastminute. They said, what the
heck? Yeah. And, because for me,it's like I would stay in Korea.
I mean, it's my home.
For me, I think it's my home,and if I can go to Japan, like,

(55:22):
it's it's closer to go to Japan.So when I was a bit tired of
Korea, I could go to Japan andit's I I missed to be around
whatever my people can do, but Ithink my people is more
adaptivism. So racialabductiveness is like people who
think people from the diasporaalso.

Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. I mean,
like, where wherever you go,you're attacked.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. And I think because that (55:45):
undefined
body is, like, what can Ichange? It's, like, pretend that
I don't wanna be a travestitebecause dressing like a girl,
because it's really not me, andI look funny, like, I look like
a clown. And, you know, so I Imean, my body is politic. Being
outside, being however I am, andthey don't mind, okay, but now I

(56:09):
learn how to navigate in insociety.
So, like, example, when I go inthe subway, I always know where
is the exit. I I put my backagainst a wall so I know that no
nobody will go behind me the waythat I walk. And and so many
thing that I think many peoplewho who live, like, in danger

(56:30):
kind of like, I heard many,autotone in First Nation in in
in Canada. They talk about thiskind of safety measure to
survive in society. And I thinkthat is also in some ways it's
like your your body is not like,as people want.
There is always a source ofattack or that energy that

(56:54):
people you put on you.Microaggression that piles up
and then you get so tired of it.

It's been yeah. It's very hard in
Australia with the antiAsianness, like, people spitting
on us and yelling at us. Andwhen I was teaching, some people
walking by and yeah. They somepeople yelled at coronavirus
through the door at me while Iwas teaching students. And then
I said, did you call mecoronavirus?
And they said, yeah. Coronavirusat me. Like, they had to confirm

(57:23):
it and laugh. So, there's allkinds of, like, levels of
discrimination as an adopterthat must, you know, I'm I'm not
in your shoes, Kimura, but,like, just the the layers upon
layers of things that you haveto process as well as adoption,
you know, is, just something weall need to be, you know, caring
about amongst each other aswell. I noticed there was, like,

(57:46):
a panel recently, theintersectional lives of
transgender adoptees that had,

I was there.

Yeah. Yeah. So, is it Pauline Park and Ryan
Gustafsson, who's in Australia.The conversation's there and how
we create harm in our owncommunities as well as adoptees.
So they're moving through theseconversations is really, really
vital.

I'm just, I mean like, I I read in the news
that this kind of, hate againstAsian people is happening
because of the pandemic, but youknow, I live in Korea so I
haven't experienced it firsthandand it's just so shocking and it
makes me so sad to hear that youare experiencing that firsthand.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: But, you know, I wonder, you (58:29):
undefined
know, it's like, in Korea,because it's all Asian, but,
like, if there is the Indian,variant, and then how Korean
will react to South Asianpeople. Maybe it's gonna be that
same racism that we live asAsian here, you know. So racism

(58:52):
is everywhere. So

Right. Exactly. University students,
it's really interesting. Like,the Korean university students
are interested in racism, andthey think about racism as
something that happens inWestern countries against Asian
people. And they're like, well,I've never experienced racism,
but they're very interested inwhat's happening with Asian
people in the West right nowbecause of the pandemic.

(59:16):
And they view it as kind oflike, because they're Asian,
they feel sort of likepersonally offended by it, I
think. But also they many ofthem have only lived in Korea
and they are ethnic Korean andthey've never experienced racism
themselves, which is like reallyinteresting to me. So I've been
trying to encourage them becausewe do also have international

(59:38):
students in our class toactually talk with the
international students about theracism that they experience
because they do. Because of thepandemic, right? It's also hard
for them to connect becausewe're all doing classes over
Zoom.
Yeah. It's it's hard for them todo and I think sort of hard for
them to conceptualize Korea as aracist place. And for sure, it's

(01:00:01):
like the most white supremacistplace I've ever been in. Like,
for having so few white people,it's still mega white
supremacist.

Dr. Indigo Willing (01:00:08):
Yeah. I wasn't sure how Korean society
deals with street harassment orjust anti discrimination in
general. Is it is it put itunder the carpet or is it
confront and have laws?

Jane Jeong Trenka (01:00:21):
Well, there is an anti discrimination law.
People have advocated for thislaw for a long time, but it
keeps getting slapped down bythe Protestants. It's a law that
would benefit everybody. So likethe anti discrimination law, in
which you should not be able todo discriminate against anybody
for any reason, would helpeverybody, but the conservative

(01:00:44):
protestants in Korea are, like,super anti gay, anti queer, and
they just they wanna continuediscriminating. So whenever this
law comes up for a vote, theyblock it.
That's the power, I guess, ofthe Protestant church in Korea.
They are more Christian than TheUnited States is.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: But in Korea, they are very (01:01:04):
undefined
extremist for either way, oneway or the other.

In the book, Indigo, you talk a little bit
about connecting with Vietnamesecommunity and about language
being a hardship. Right?

It was more like the language around
identities in The United States,I think, has changed and the
inclusion of, say, Latinx and,you know, the evolution of
language for, you know, variouspolitical purposes. With the
Vietnamese language, there areadoptees that go and return to
live in Vietnam and becomefluent in Vietnamese language,

(01:01:41):
which is really great. It'sparticularly difficult language
for me to learn and some others.It's got five different tones.
So you can say the same word infive different tones, and it can
mean five different things.
So, even when I went over for areturn trip, one of my single
friends was trying to learn howto say to women, you have a

(01:02:02):
beautiful smile, and he wassaying you have a beautiful ox
cart. So

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: and he (01:02:09):
undefined

thought he was really charming and all of
that, but, like, you know, whatnot successful. So, you know,
there's there's a there'svarious hurdles through
colonialism that strip you ofyour culture and your language,
and there's a lot of solace intalking to, other communities
that, you know, language issomething that's hard. So it's

(01:02:30):
great that, you know, we're justaware that you don't necessarily
become, you know, you you maynot be fluent in the language
immediately. You might need towork on it. But, yeah, language
is a a a really important thingfor younger adoptees, and I I
really hope that the generationcoming through are more fluent
and exposed and, pick up thelanguage faster.

(01:02:52):
But the ones that are joiningAdopted Vietnamese
International, the communitygroup that I've run since 2020,
seem to have the same kind ofissues around language. So,
eventually, we'll hopefullycatch up with, like, the Korean
adoptee movement that seems to,you know, have, lessons for
adoptees and so on and resourcesfor them to connect with their

(01:03:13):
original language. I can say Ican't speak Vietnamese in
Vietnamese. So that's what Iknow as well.

So is is there any, government support
for adoptees who are returningto Vietnam to learn Vietnamese?

I'm really glad that you asked that
question about what theVietnamese government how it's
trying to reach out to theVietnamese adoptees, and we can
the only reason I'm glad thatyou asked that is that there's
not much there, but I canhighlight the work of a
colleague of mine or appear,Lynell Long, who runs she used

(01:03:51):
to run it was called the,intercountry adoptee support
network. It's now known as ICAV,intercountry adoptee
perspectives and voices. AndLynelle's work in adoption has
been for the past at least threeyears making incredible steps
for us. She's gone to The U notthe UN. She's gone to, like, the

(01:04:13):
United Nations and the, theconvention.
She's gone to all these placesto try and look at the
structural things that hold usback, and she's also written
letters and met with Vietnameseofficials to talk about the kind
of things that I think Koreanadoptees can take for granted,
but that we haven't got yet. SoI think, anyone interested in

(01:04:35):
sort of listening to this andwanting to know where Vietnamese
government is in terms ofhelping adoptee search and
returning and all that, the workthat's posted up by ICAB, by
Lanell is really invaluable. Andshe's been doing this work since
1998, but really in the past,few years, you know, that's when
I think it's been possible forthe Vietnamese government to

(01:04:56):
wanna have these conversationswith us. So it's a long journey
to get the steps that we need.

Is there any kind of feeling of collective
guilt or anything on theVietnamese side about the
adoptions?

So the the Vietnamese societies, got very
political. So the Vietnamesesociety and Vietnamese
government is you know, they'vegot various narratives and
histories and things that they,have from their perspectives
that can be quite different fromoverseas perspectives. And for
adoptees, that's one of thebiggest challenges for us is to

(01:05:33):
translate and reconcile with thevarious perspectives on what
happened during the war and theadoptees. You know, the the
narratives are evolving to who'sVietnamese, what kind of
citizenship obligations do youhave, what kinds of loyalties to
the state and to Vietnam do youhave. So, Vietnam is a very

(01:05:53):
collective society.
It's not individualistic. Itsort of, is very much focused on
a collective experience ofhealing as well. So, you know,
sort of reuniting and and whatyou can bring and give to
Vietnam as opposed to the otherway around, I think, for the
most part. So differentpsychology around adoption, and

(01:06:14):
I don't think that, I I can'tsay I can't speak because I
haven't read many Vietnamesetranslated writings on adoption,
but I think that theencouragement there to come back
and give to Vietnamese societyand give back to the Vietnamese
people is the emphasis, andthat's that's really interesting
angle and understandingunderstandable.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. I have a question, because (01:06:32):
undefined
I know that Korean adoptees havethis group, about the DNA, for
adoptees. And do you have alsothis sense of an awareness for
Vietnamese in the homeland to,maybe share the DNA for to find,

(01:06:53):
adoptees?

Yes. So this, such a great question.
Thank you for raising it,Kamira. Is that the DNA is a
game changer in Vietnameseadoption and searches, and
there's an amazing VietnameseAmerican adoptee called Trista
Goldberg who originally set up aDNA project for us for mainly
for Amerasians as well. She doesamazing work just trying to look

(01:07:16):
at Amerasian connections andrights as well as adoptees.
She's a Vietnamese adoptee too,and we do have a DNA project.
And also people are just usingprivate companies as well to do
DNA tests and get matches, and,the funding for Vietnamese
mothers is the biggest challengethat that project has because

(01:07:36):
most of the people, in Americaand Australia and France and so
on that are, putting their DNAin can afford it from their
side. But trying to get theswabs and collect the DNA from
Vietnamese mothers and,surviving relatives is the real
challenge, and that's somethingthat Trista has been working on
as well. The other thing isprivacy and culture. So not

(01:07:58):
everybody wants to and I'm surethat that we could look at the
work of, Jane's work inparticular around single mothers
as well.
There's another layer ofcomplexity with that. So, there
is the momentum there, but it'snot at a state level or at a
national level where there'ssort of, you know, big awareness
campaigns over the DNA. It'svery grassroots at this at this

(01:08:20):
stage, but it definitely exists,the DNA searching databases and
projects. Are they are theysupported by the Korean
government for Korean adoptees?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: No. No. I think we we have to (01:08:29):
undefined
do.

So it's unlikely that Korean mothers
would, you know, necessarily bein the in the database. It's
more Korean adoptee searching?

Well, well, so there's a police database,
which is for missing children.If you're an adoptee, you can
put your DNA in there. And inthe embassies of Western
countries where the pre andadoptees went, you may also
submit your DNA to thatdatabase. So I'm not the

(01:09:00):
authority on this, so I justplease, listeners, forgive me
for for the mistakes that I willmake. So they can they can put
their DNA there, and then it cango into the police database.
And the problem is that I thinkthere is some restriction in
Korea about who may put theirDNA there on the searching side.

(01:09:25):
I think for for a lot ofadoptees, it says that, like,
you're abandoned outside thepolice station, you're you're
abandoned outside the city hall,whatever. And so for those
people who have no trace, theycan directly put their DNA
there. For people who seem tohave something on their record
that links them to a person, anactual person, it's not okay.
For people like the birth motherwho is searching, it's okay for

(01:09:49):
her to submit to this databaseif she says that she had a
missing child.
But if they sort of confessed tolike I actually gave up my child
for adoption through an adoptionagency, that would not be okay.
Separately, there is theorganization three twenty five
camera, which is doingincredible work and they are
using private DNA databases. Andthe way that they connect them

(01:10:15):
so they they use some differentkits. They they have used twenty
three and me. They've used,Family Tree.
I think it's called Family Tree.And then there is sort of like a
third party database where youcan put in your raw data and it
gets mixed around and they canmatch you and that one's called
GEDmatch. The the kits arefunded by Thomas Park Clement
who is one of the first adopteesand who has been so generous to

(01:10:40):
the adoptee community. He'sreally like a big brother in so
many ways to so many of us. Sothat is happening and I have my
own little dream for TNA inKorea.
And I I'm kind of having aproblem convincing everybody
that this should happen, but,what my dream would be is that

(01:11:01):
it would all go to thegovernment. Okay. So here's the
thing. In Korea, is that, like,there's a lot of old people.
Right?
And old people living on islandsand remote places, and how are
they ever gonna get their DNA inthere? How are they ever gonna
know about this? So I wouldreally like it so that the DNA
would be open for all people whoare searching for a person who
is, say, up to three degrees ofrelation from them, so like up

(01:11:24):
to aunt and aunt or uncle level.And then because we have this
like really centralizedgovernment and and Korea is a
small country, If at every,police station or better yet
every community health centerwhere every old person goes for
their health checks, if theyinstall a place for them to get

(01:11:45):
to know about this program andthen also do the DNA swab, then
we have reached everybody inKorea. Yay.
And then that would be theirconsent as well because the
problem with records, like,where do I even start? But so,
like, if your spit is in there,you must have consented. Right?
So one of the problems that wehave is, you know, like, maybe

(01:12:05):
an adoptee can find a relativethrough the records, but then
there's this extra step with thesearch process now where they
have to get their consent. Andusually what happens is they
don't get a flat out no.
They don't get a flat out yes.They get a no answer. And so
this is interpreted as no. Andthen the problem is is, like,
who did you get when they sendthe so called telegram? Who did

(01:12:26):
they even find at the end ofthis telegram?
We don't even know who that isbecause the last step for all
search is the DNA test anyway.So what can happen is that
somebody can receive a noanswer, which is no, or they can
receive a no answer, a nonanswer interpreted also as no.
But this person might not evenbe the person they're looking
for. So what that means is thatperson's search is blocked. They

(01:12:50):
don't even know that theirgenetic mother is out there and
might still want to be reunitedreunited with them because they
think that this other person whonever consented to anything is
actually their genetic mother.
This is not to say that allforms of search should be
blocked except for the DNA, Butif you wanted to just get to the

(01:13:11):
point, you would just do theDNA. We as international
adoptees actually have a hugeamount of privilege because we
have come out and we've saidthings and we don't feel the
stigma and shame I think thatdomestic adoptees feel about,
birth family search. And a lotof domestic adoptees are not

(01:13:32):
even officially adopted becausethere was no paperwork, there
was only trafficking. Theycannot prove that they're
adopted. And so how can they goto the police station and say
I'm an adoptee?
They can't. And that they wouldbe able to show, hey, I'm not
related to anybody else on myfamily tree, on my family
register this official paper.And there are many people who
were, like my child's father wasput in an orphanage. And of

(01:13:56):
course, not everybody in theorphanage was adopted, most of
them weren't. But these peoplealso don't know their roots.
Why? Because the owner of thisorphanage views all of this
information as her property. Iwent with my child's father when
we were there together. I wentto J Town and lived there for a
year because we're like I waslike, okay, I'm pregnant right

(01:14:17):
now. I'm gonna have a baby.
I'm not gonna be running aroundfrom Seoul to J Town all the
time to do your family search,so let's just go live there. So
we lived there, and at the time,the mayor was so touched by the
story that he requested hisstaff to ask her for these
records. And guess what? Shestill won't give them. Why?
Okay. So and then we met some ofthe orphans who grew up there

(01:14:37):
because there was a, petitionthat they made to the National
Human Rights Commission becausethey were horribly abused there.
And they had, filed a petitionagainst her or against that
orphanage. So, we met some ofthem and they also can't get
their records. The reason shegives is because she doesn't
want them to resent theirparents.

(01:15:00):
So, like, at this time Irealized there's so many people
in Korea, not just adoptinternational adoptees, domestic
adoptees, people who have justbeen abandoned, like people like
my biological sister whosemother just left the family. She
has no idea about her her ownmom. So many people who are
separated, the only path is DNA.And so this, again, is like the

(01:15:22):
the ramp and elevator path. So Iwas like, I can't convince
everybody about this or orreally anybody.
So I guess I'll just go back toselling insurance. But you know
what? It's interesting. There'sa microcosm of adoptees who live
in Korea. Right?
There's this microcosm, and Ikind of thought, if I'm ever
going to go out of thismicrocosm, I need to learn

(01:15:43):
Korean. That's the only way out.So, I learned enough to do some
other things. But then I foundout, wow, okay. So, within the
microcosm of foreigners, right,there's a microcosm of adoptees.
But there's all kinds of veryinteresting stuff going on with
all kinds of foreigners inKorea. And I sort of found this
out through insurance. Andthere's so many, ways to connect

(01:16:07):
people and to be of service topeople who are not just adopted
in Korea too. So I I find thatexciting. So I'm kind of getting
energy out there and then, like,maybe later on I'll try to
convince people about my grandDNA idea again.
Kimura, I did wanna ask youabout the agencies and what you
did with Hagen Sun, if you canshare that, and how you learn to

(01:16:29):
read this code on the records. Ithink you you were like, well,
if they wrote this, then it mustmean this. You know, because
it's not like a real code, butsort of like a way of speaking
that you or way of writing therecords that you understand.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: For the search? Yeah. Okay. For (01:16:42):
undefined
me, it's like, obviously, I'mfrom Belgium, and I know the
whole files. But because I getrequests from all different kind
of people from, from Sweden,which is SWS, and then I get
some from the state, which is aKSS or HALT.

(01:17:03):
I I think the fact that I workon so many different cases, as
you could see some of my file, Ithink you had them in hand for
some time. So with that, I couldanalyze all this kind of file
and how different they weresometime, and they had, like,
some same tendency. Some were,like, relinquish, which is

(01:17:25):
easier, but some were abandoned.But then the abandoned is like
also when it's written RC, it'sa reception center, but an
adoptee will not know that it'sa reception center even though
it's written abandoned. But it'snot abandoned because reception
center means it's relinquished,but not report.

(01:17:46):
So it's all this kind of stuffthat I learned. It's like if
someone said they were abandonedin a police station and then we
see, example, Namdaemun, andthen it was Dongdaemun Police
Station, which is very far away.So you have to know also that it
was maybe a lie or the the kidwas displaced. The the layers of

(01:18:09):
information we have in anadoption file is very important
to read the whole thing, in adocumentary with KSS. I think
they were at KSS office, andthey say, oh, we don't wanna
give you the Korean translationof, your adoption paper in the
adoption agency in Korea.
And why? Because they writesomething else from what they

(01:18:32):
translate and give to the,adoptee, families. So it's like,
for me, it's always good to havethe Korean translation and to be
sure that it's the sametranslation. If not, sometimes
they write different things andask someone else to sometimes I
I went to an adoption agencywith an adoptee. They had the

(01:18:52):
file.
It was, the other way around.Like, the social worker had in
front of her, but she put on thedesk. And then I could see the
name of the birth mother, butthey said we have nothing. But
because the other kid cannotread Korean, they don't know
that. They have just write downthe name and, the, the the name
of ID card.

(01:19:13):
So the birthday, the year, themonth, the day. And so for me, I
just said, oh, okay. We don'thave it. Then I wrote everything
discreetly, and then we foundthe mother. And the mother
wrote, like, for more than fiveyears to OKS to try to have
information of her kids.
And they say, no. We cannotbecause we don't wanna disturb

(01:19:34):
the adoptive family. And theadoptive never get the
information from the Koreanadoption agency. Searching is so
much I mean, for me, I think itis a challenge, of course, but
it's also I wanna go as far asyou can. Most of adoptees, when
they come to me, they say I havenothing.
And I say no, you don't havenothing. You have stopped. Your

(01:19:56):
whole adoption file is noteverything. It's like, okay.
It's the star for search.
And so as you know, it's likethen, you go it's like a police
report and, like, you have to goto the closest date to your
birthday, the date that you wereabandoned officially, and not
when you were taken by the theadoption agency. And many people

(01:20:19):
think about the adoption agency,but they don't think when they
were really abandoned. Sometimeit takes two years, sometime
it's few months. I always wantto see the file they have, and
then from there, say what Ibelieve, what we can go further,
in what kind of search we cando, where to go with your

(01:20:40):
adoption code, number. You canknow sometime what other than
I've been seeing you from oralso.
So this kind of stuff ofknowledge I get from searching
for more than, I would say,twenty years. You know? Because
they're still helping other kidsnow over Internet, over email.
Some some people, throughFacebook, they ask me.

So at the time that you showed me your
boxes of files, you had done 600searches,

I think.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: More than, yeah. (01:21:10):
undefined

Wow. And at the time you were in Seoul, you
showed me the spreadsheet thatthat you had where you would
make gray the names of thepeople who had committed
suicide.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. There are so many. It's (01:21:25):
undefined
not young people who commitsuicide often. It's like people
who are like 25, 30. It's likethe time that they book for job
or, like, when they have maybestart a relationship or they get
rejected or you don't know howto do in the society.
It's not just when you student.It's it's later.

Tobias Hubinet, looked at the
statistics in Sweden, and hesaid that it's happening often
during the holiday times.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: It's maybe when they feel (01:21:53):
undefined
lonely. Yeah. For me, it's likeI I always remember when I was
maybe, 10 years old, even not,maybe seven. It's like in in my
school, there were, like, afamily of two other piece in a
normal family, and they allcommit suicide. The the father,
then the son, then after themother and after the daughter.

(01:22:17):
And, in my neighborhood, it wasso many people, adopted to
commit suicide. I think myhometown, the city where I was
adopted is where, the adoptionstart, from Korea. The first,
normally, they were Vietnamese.And because the Vietnamese
children didn't come fromVietnam, they replaced with

(01:22:39):
Korean. But the the mother stillhave your your Vietnamese baby
will come and she got a Koreanbaby.
It's crazy. It's like, theyreplaced, like and it was the
other financial agency in,Belgium, Ter Des Homme. You have
Ter des Homme, in Belgium. Youhave in Swiss. You have in
Germany.

(01:23:00):
Maybe in France. You know? And,they were like I mean, the
Belgian, TerDazam branch was theworst one. They had a bank, bank
account in Switzerland. So theyhad to close many from dead
adoption in Sikkimis, Tucson.
But my generation of young, youknow, John Yeah. The we we live

(01:23:23):
so much hardship. Most of us, wewe as I I mean, from people I
know of my generation. I mean,when we meet, and it was that's
why I think the first Koreanadoptee association was really
very healing for for us to talkabout all these, abuse issues.
But after the generation whowere adopted in the eighties or

(01:23:46):
nineties were, like, betteradopted.
So we knew it was aboutscreening the right parents and
not just the money. I think thatthe generation of the eighties,
later eighties and nineties,have a very different experience
about the adoption. It's it's soweird. And, for me, I I still,

(01:24:07):
am very close to two adopteeswho were the first adoptees in
Belgium, and we are all fifties.You know, we were all born in
'68.
And, it's like we are harmony,like, you know, it's so weird.

So I kind of wonder what you think about
death. You know, as as we talkedabout, we're kind of a a dying
species. And the the people ofour generation, I think, who who
grew up so, isolated and abused,Hopefully hopefully I mean,
like, hopefully, we're a dyingspecies. And then we've also

(01:24:44):
been surrounded by death of allthese suicides. So, like, how
how do you feel about it?
Like, your own death.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: For me, I thought I would die, (01:24:50):
undefined
this year anyway. So, notbecause of suicide, but I don't
know. It's like I went toFortune Taylor, and they said
that I'm gonna die at 53. I'm 52now, western age. I mean, like,
53 Korean age.
So I have only one month to tothink about. So, but maybe the

(01:25:15):
the idea or the concept of dyingis maybe I'm gonna finally find
my body as a trans person. Sothis maybe that's the way that I
can interpret that. I I thoughta lot about, reproducing myself
or not, but also because I'm anartist and financially not
stable, I chose to not. Foradoptees who have kids, it's

(01:25:38):
like it's a continuation.
It's like, the the kids willbring the memory of your
existence. I hope that, the nextgeneration adoptees who maybe
would like also to adopt fromoverseas, hopefully, they will
be better parents or, like,thinking about their parentality

(01:25:58):
as perial and not just somonogam or, like, poly, mono
parental or, like, just onecouple, one set, you know, to
explode, to enlarge the idea of,raising a kid and not being so,
Christian or not soheteronormative. Because, like,

(01:26:21):
example in, Africa or other,like, communities, for this and
then when they have a kiss, thatthe mother is not they they just
take over in the cousin, andthey don't say they do a great
job. They just it's natural.They will take care of their
kids, and they don't need toadopt, like, the fact to process

(01:26:42):
something as an object.
And so that that mentality of,savior and it's not only to
white people. I mean, whitepeople brought that concept, but
I think is you can be Asian andespecially Korean adoptees and
have this white savior mentalityalso. You know? They said, do
they need their help? Do theyask for help from you,

(01:27:03):
especially is is for your ownsanity sometimes also is to for
you to make feel better.
And for me, it's like I preparemy debt, and that's why I wanted
to become a Canadian because Ididn't wanna die in Belgium. For
me, it will be the worst everfailure in my life. So that's
why I spent so much time tobecome Canadian. It took,

(01:27:26):
fifteen years. So last year, Ibecame Canadian.
But now I'm sure that I can, ifI die and that's why I didn't
wanna commit suicide before ordie before because I I wanted to
be sure if I can and I realizedmaybe five years ago, ten years
ago that I couldn't die inKorea. I couldn't be buried in
Korea as a Korean adopteeforeigner, not having the

(01:27:49):
citizenship. That's what theytold me. So I say, oh, I have to
become Canadian, and I will takeall my energy to become Canadian
because at least Canada is aneutral place that has nothing
with my birth family or birth,ancestor. So I can be free in
Canada and die free.

(01:28:09):
It's not like dramatic. It'slike, I had a good life. I I
experienced a lot. I wannashare. I wanna leave some stuff,
archive and stuff, and then, youknow, we're gonna serve the
community.
And, so that I had my time andit's it's not bad. You know?
It's like that's the way it is.

It's been a pleasure to speak with you and,
yeah, thank you for all of thework that you have done in your
life to lay the groundwork thatmakes my life here possible and
for connecting so many adopteesand doing so much work for
search that has made so manypeople's reunion possible in our
community. I thank you from thebottom of my heart.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: Yeah. But you too. You did a (01:28:54):
undefined
great job. So it's like youcontinue your work, and thank
you for the the second editionof, outside our reunions. Thank
you.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your
contribution to that. AndIndigo, you contributed even
while you were a new mother,which is like a crazy time also
of no sleep.

So good to have all these voices together.
Let me say thank you in Korean.Is it?

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Korean and Vietnamese adoptees on the intimate racialized politics of transracial adoption

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